Synchronising Google App’s innovation with the functionality of Microsoft Office

A common question and concern faced by companies who are considering adopting Google Apps is will they still be able to use the Microsoft office tools like word, excel and PowerPoint? For the past 15-20 years they have become accustom to using these tools and are therefore hesitant about Google Apps, fearing there will be a steep learning curve and potentially a step backwards.

Rest assured these fears are unfounded as Google Apps seamlessly integrates with Microsoft office documents, allowing you to upload, download and share documents. Additionally, Google’s acquisition of Quickoffice now makes it possible to gain the benefits of working in a live collaborative environment from any device whilst maintaining Microsoft documents in their original format.

Google Docs and Quickoffice provides you with all the features that you are use to when constructing your documents.

Indeed, Microsoft Office is viewed as the standard of document creation functionality. When converting MS Office files to other cloud based formats like Google Docs many people fear the loss of fidelity, including loss of text boxes, columns, graphics, image placement, etc. The good news is, Google Apps has the edge in terms of cross-platform cross-device interoperability and with the inclusion of Quickoffice there is now vast improvements in cross-document conversion, with near identical functionality.

The fact is that Google Apps is steadily growing, according to Gartner's analysis, gaining about 10 percent of the cloud-office market in 2007, 20 percent in 2009, and between 33 percent and 50 percent in 2012. Google Apps for Business and other cloud products from the search giant are now used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies.

This is evident as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are productivity apps that let you create different kinds of online documents, work on them in real time with other people, and store them in your Google Drive online - all for free. Google Docs is Google’s answer to Microsoft Word, while Sheets is its alternative to Excel. Files can even be edited in the browser and on smartphones and tablets through the Google Drive App.

Working with Microsoft Outlook® and Google Apps has also never been easier. Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook® is a plug-in for Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010 or 2013 that lets you use Outlook to manage your Google Apps mail, calendar, and contacts, along with your Outlook tasks, notes, and journal entries. With Google Apps Sync, your Outlook details and notes are stored both in your Google Apps account in the cloud and in Outlook on your computer. You can tell that synchronization is happening when the Google Apps Sync icon in your system tray is spinning.

Google Drive for your Mac/PC;

Google Apps also supports various add-ons and features to improve functionality, including, Google Drive for your Mac/PC and Google Sync.

Sync any folders to Google Drive from anywhere on your PC, network or even an external drive and schedule backups.

Access all your files offline by copying all file locally. This means that you can edit these files when offline. When you go online again, your changes are synced automatically.

Sync multiple accounts at the same time including, over-the-air synchronization for many Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Palm, Pocket PC devices as well as Microsoft Outlook.

The primary benefit of Google Drive is the simplification of corporate communication capabilities. Work-based collaboration is subsequently significantly enhanced as the lag time that comes with emailing documents to co-workers is eliminated, replaced by real-time communication and worldwide access to documents.

Google Sync

See and use your Gmail using a mobile device, desktop programs like Outlook and Thunderbird, or even while you’re offline.

Integrate your Google contacts with those on your mobile device, or learn how to import and export contacts from different email accounts.

See and use your Google Calendar on your computer, mobile devices, and through desktop programs like Outlook or iCal.

Just sign in to Chrome to sync your bookmarks, history, and other settings between all your devices.

Gmail Offline

Gmail Offline is the Gmail Desktop Client for windows based PC's and may also be a good fit for you if you;

Have multiple email addresses with different domains from different providers.

Prefer to backup your mail yourself regularly.

You use security features like digital signing, public key infrastructure (PKI), or encryption.

You use advanced mail rules and filtering based on multiple factors (words, senders, subjects, headers, etc.)

If flexibility, functionality and wide spread access is important to your business, Google Apps is your one stop solution.

Office Compatability Mode

Some of the most common file types stored in Drive are Microsoft Word, Excel® and PowerPoint® files. We’ve now built the power of Quickoffice into Docs, Sheets and Slides, so you can open and edit those documents in their native format using Office Compatibility Mode directly on Android and Chrome browser today, and coming soon to iOS. No need to buy additional software or decide how to open your file. Editing Office files is just a click or tap away from Drive on your computer, tablet or phone.

Best of all Google Apps for business is a low cost solution with high ROI and Google documents come as a standard part of that package. At £33 per year Google Apps provides best in class Software as a Service (SaaS) in comparison to expensive local file server offers. The cloud-based environment of Google Drive is virtually a no cost solution with considerable storage space.

Only £3.30 per User/Month!

30 Day Proof-of-Concept Trial

To assess whether Google Apps is right for your business, why not take part in a no obligation 30 day proof-of-concept trial. Use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive and Google Sites and more with no commitment or impact on your current IT services. This is a great way of finding out if the solutions offers the tools and features your users need before making any long term commitment.